Earlier this year I broke one of my rules and interviewed with a tech company you HAVE heard of, they aren't a FAANG but if the next tier down had ...
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I am not sure what you mean by "self-taught developer", but from the beginning of my CS degree, I have been learning my own with the help of online resources.
Next thing is that, I am always afraid to apply for the jobs where the ask to solve these sort of problems to apply specific algorithm. I know my limitation and would ingenuously say that I lack the knowledge these algorithm based solution.
Finally, you got to know that you didn't get selected. One month ago, I was interviewed by the HR and on the same day had a technical interview. I was informed that I will be notified if I can't make it within 15 days. On the 12th day, they asked me to complete an offline coding test/assignment. It's been 20 days and they didn't reply yet. And I am not sure when they will get back with the result.
Anyway, it was a nice write up. Cheers.
If you haven't heard back in that long there are two possibilities:
You should get in touch with them to find out which it is. If if the first then contacting them won't hurt as you already don't have the job and you might get some feedback. If it's the second then contacting them is a good thing because they do want you and don't realist that something has gone wrong.
If they are still deliberating then really it's situation 1 and it won't hurt your chances to get in touch any way to see what's going on.
Thanks man for the suggestion. I'll try to get in touch with them then.
No problem, here is the "Is it over" email template from my book, might be of some use.
Dear contactName,
I’m conscious we are a little over two weeks since our last conversation and I’m hoping to get a status update on my application.
I understand that things can get caught up internally however I have other applications that are progressing and I’m keen to know where I stand with companyName as, while you are my first choice, I need to know if it’s time to move on.
Look forward to hearing back from you
Kind regards
yourName
Hopefully this is of some help
Taken from careerswitchtocoding.com/
Thanks mate for the template. <3
Well, I think it's a shame if one bad experience is all it takes to not apply for a similar position again. I just landed my first frontend developer position after doing several recruitment sessions. I would think an interview should be considered a week worth of work. There would be 3-4 interviews, personally test, tech interview or test and I would have to do a lot of reading and preparation beforehand. I think this is a skill you need to learn, because it feels very different from coding and development on a real project.
I appreciate the comment but disagree with:
Companies have gotten so wound up in the hire slow, fire fast culture that was spouted years ago that they are wasting peoples time and missing out on good candidates because companies with quicker hiring processes are getting in first.
This isn't a case of "one bad experience". I have believed for years that more than three interactions is a waste of time, even back when I hired people running a company.
I totally get that it's a different set of skills, I just don't feel that trade off in time and effort is worth it when you can be de-railed by poor performance when so many other companies will get you an offer in 2 or 3 rounds 😀
Cool, if you can apply for jobs and get hired in 2 rounds go for it! But here in Denmark the interviews I have been going to have all been 3 or 4 rounds. This is certainly not the norm outside of the it field, so can only agree that it's aggressive. But this is how things are around here...
Great piece, love that you took something positive from an otherwise exhausting process. I've had lots of different types of interviews - some of them successful, some of them not - over the past 3 years since I changed careers. And just like you, I've received plenty of offers within 3-4 rounds of interviews. I had to do 6 rounds to get my current job, and while this interview process was quite nicely structured I would definitely not go through the same process for just any company.
Often, the types of so-called "pair programming" tasks you've described turn out to be nothing but stressful solo programming exercises. It takes one bad interaction or one moment of confusion to ruin the whole interview. And a lot of companies don't even give you another chance to redeem yourself. The way I see it, there's very little you can learn about a candidate (or about the team you'll be working with, if you're the applicant) in such interviews, as there's a very specific type of software engineer who will thrive in this environment. And they always get the job.
Great that you went through with it anyway and learnt so much in the process!
Thanks for this comment, 100% agree. The middle test where I messed up was like you describe, a bad stressful moment that ultimately (I think) cost me the job and no amount of other positive indicators of my abilities could change that persons mind I guess. Basically it’s a process where you need to be perfect the whole way through with no slip ups 🤷♂️🤦♂️
Good write-up. I enjoy reading about how other companies interview their candidates. Not everyone has the position or privilege of turning down interviews because of their length, though, and a lot of companies follow FAANG interview styles. I don't think we're going to get away from leetcode-style interviews any time soon. The "let's chat about a project of your choosing" is great, though, and the LRU cache problem sound pretty interesting.
Yes, there were elements of this process that were good but the overall feeling that I came away from was "waste of time other than confirming what I already knew about long interview experiences"
There are enough companies that don't do FAANG style that I don't think you have to be privileged to turn them down. In fact I think that you have to fairly privileged to have the time to be able to go through long interview processes. People who are in desperate need of a job (more likely a career switcher with family obligations and the like) are blocked from the FAANG tiers not from ability but from circumstance.
Thanks do the comment and glad you enjoyed the write up 😀